Kelly Services

Kelly Services puts social tools to work

Relationships are everything to Kelly Services. Originally known for the "Kelly Girl"—who took dictation or sat at a typewriter—the company is now a worldwide leader in workforce solutions. Offering staffing on a temporary, temporary-to-hire, and direct-hire basis, Kelly provides employment for more than half a million people around the world and relies on social tools to connect and collaborate across borders.

Kelly has come a long way since its first employee in 1946. As the company grew to also offer an array of outsourcing and consulting services, branch offices from around the world needed consistent communications in order to present a consolidated offering to multinational clients. That’s when the company tapped Salesforce technologies to improve communication and collaboration—kicking off Kelly’s transformation to become a customer company.

Today, Kelly employees can collaborate and participate in conversations across functions, geographies, and operations, thanks to a private employee social network. "This type of instant communication through the entire organization gives you a small company feel—you can actually begin to engage with everybody," says Carl Camden, President and CEO. The company is also becoming more efficient. Camden continues, "As a socially connected business, we’ve expanded our sales efforts beyond just the traditional sales or pre-sales teams. Now everyone in the company is a subject matter expert that can help to engage in new sales pursuits, land new business, or deliver new opportunities. Going social has been totally transformational for us."

Going social is also helping Kelly streamline enterprise processes like asset management and recruiting. Information can be easily shared across the globe, and it’s easy for employees to share best practices around reducing costs and collaborate to place available contractors with opportunities that match their skill sets.

Getting personal with personnel

The way Kelly communicates with customers is also changing. The company integrates Salesforce with Facebook and Twitter to maintain a complete history of customer interactions through all channels. Contact centres can be rapidly deployed and expanded to handle sudden spikes caused by social media activity and agents can connect more closely with customers and temporary employees.